The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [104]
I had imagined Dameon would have provided some plausible reason, but it appeared he had left it to me. Trying to give myself time to think, I asked Jik why he had not asked Dameon himself.
He shrugged diffidently. “I thought somebody would tell me why eventually.”
I nodded, deciding that I could not burden him with the true reason. “Your knowledge of Herder lore will be useful to us. We know so little about the practices of the priesthood or of their ambitions. They seem to be growing stronger and more powerful. And, of course, there is your knowledge of Sutrium.”
Jik frowned. “I was taken by the priests when I was very young. I hardly remember it. I don’t know any more about Sutrium than you,” he concluded in a troubled voice.
I patted his arm reassuringly. “Don’t worry about why you’re here. Just concentrate on remembering everything you can about Sutrium and the Herder Faction.”
I heard squelching noises outside just as Gahltha’s cold probe slid into my mind.
I pulled aside the flap and looked into his dark, wet face, almost invisible in the night. Directly behind him, Avra was a pale blur.
“What is it?” I sent, matching his brevity.
“Avra found fresh equine tracks nearby, less than a day old. Funaga rode the equines,” Gahltha sent. “They traveled the opposite way to us, making for the main road.”
“Maybe someone else knows about the Olden way,” Domick said when I told the others.
I sent a questing thought to Avra. “Do you know how many funaga there were?”
“More than here—two times more than here,” Avra sent, as shy as Gahltha was arrogant. I bit my lip.
We had been incredibly lucky to miss the riders, but that did not solve the question of where they had come from. There were no mapped villages in the White Valley. But Louis said the highlands were full of small settlements unknown to Council mapmakers, made up of people who wanted to be free of Council domination without openly opposing it.
“Perhaps the riders came from such a settlement,” he offered without conviction.
“Perhaps they were hunting,” Domick said.
I weighed the options. “We’ll stay the night here and leave at dawn.”
I asked Gahltha to warn Darga and the other horses to keep an eye out for any sign of funaga that might give us a clue about why they had been in the White Valley. Then I dropped the flap, shutting out the bleak night.
“He doesn’t like you,” Jik said in puzzled wonder.
I nodded wryly. “Gahltha was badly abused by his old masters. I don’t think he likes any human.”
“But it’s different at Obernewtyn. No one would hurt him there,” Jik said indignantly. “It’s not fair for him to blame us.”
I smiled gently at his loyalty to his adopted home. “Not much in life is fair.”
I realized Jik had not been able to hear Gahltha but had sensed the horse’s dislike. Such sensitivity to a beast’s emotions seemed to be a new use of empathising, or perhaps a new Talent altogether. I made a mental note to discuss it with Dameon when we returned.
“What do you think those people were doing here?” Kella asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But if they are in hiding, they won’t want to see us any more than we want to stumble into their midst. I’m going to farsense the way ahead. If there is any sign of a settlement, we’ll change course and bypass it.” I closed my eyes.
For a moment, I was half mesmerized by my own exhaustion and the monotonous sound of rain on the canvas roof of the caravan. I had forgotten how storms could affect my range. Pavo’s theory was that rain occasionally contained some sort of mild taint to which humans had adapted but which nevertheless acted upon Misfit abilities.
I forced myself to concentrate, and then my probe was flying swift and low along the path we had planned to take. I touched briefly on the minds of various nocturnal creatures but found no human mind. At one point, I was startled when a cloud of shadowy birds rose, flittering and shrieking indignantly, disturbed by my scrying. Finding nothing, I came back along the same path, swinging out on both sides.
My probe brushed briefly along the static